“Our previous acts determine our present life, and our present acts go to make our future. We reap now what we have sown in our previous births, and we shall reap in the future what we are sowing now.”[1]

That does sound quite plausible but, as such reasoning is a bit heavy going for some of us, I thought I would concoct a very basic illustration of how Soul and Ego, Thought and Mind come together to interact with Karma.

Here goes:

Here I am, indulging in a series of grumpy thoughts because, last night, my darling announced it was time to invite over a few friends we hadn't seen for quite some time. I reminded her that seeing as we all lived on average within 30 minutes of each other, if neither we nor any of them had organised a catch up get-together in over a year then, surely, there had to be a reason for that – at their end as well as at ours.

And now, so many hours later, I am actively stewing about the flaws I perceive in my darling's funhouse plans. Thoughts of sabotage and mutiny flit across my mind.

“Don't go there! Let it go,” says Thought. “Breathe! Stick to the moment that's under your feet,” she urges. “Why get all worked up about a plan that’s not even pencilled in?”

Question: where did this *little voice* come from?

The obvious answer would be to say that it came from Common Sense a.k.a. Voice of Reason - and don't we all know that voice well ;-)

This little voice brought to my consciousness by Mind is actually Soul's voice commonly known as Consciousness.

We do not have a self, not as such, but we do have Soul – all of us do and each soul is pure energy.

No one – not even the worst of the international community’s current *enemies* - has a dark soul. There is no such thing as a *dark* soul.

Karma and an Ego-Persona are the other two of our *drivers*.

Karma and Ego are naturally neutral. They are as neutral as, in itself, fire is neutral – it can warm us, cook our food, stop a greater fire in its tracks, just as it has the potential to create havoc and devastation.

The wind and the rain are neutral, too. So is uranium. So are cars.

They each serve a genuine purpose. Electricity is neutral, too. Neither good nor bad, and we can’t live anymore without it. It just *is*. As for all natural and man-made resources, our safety depends on what use we make of these resources and how carefully we handle them.

Similarly, it is the manner in which we interact with Karma and Ego that, too often, renders us energetically volatile and often hostile.

That’s mostly because we understand even less about Karma and Ego than we do about electricity, wind and fire. And imagine the chaos in our lives – in the world - if we all mishandled fire and electricity on a daily basis!

Soul uses Mind to push us in the right direction. Here is how she does it: